1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to storage containers of the type used to store floppy diskettes or similarly shaped objects, and particularly to such a container having means whereby one of a plurality of adjacent disks may be elevated for ease in removing that disk from the storage device.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Articles in the form of substantially flat, rectangular or square diskettes are commonly found in the office and work environment. The use of personal computers both in the home and office has steadily increased in recent years. Most such computers use flexible magnetic disks for information storage. While these disks are provided in various sizes, they all generally comprise a thin rotatable disk having a magnetically encodable surface. The disk is usually housed in a generally square cardboard pocket or plastic holder.
Since such floppy disks or floppy diskettes commonly contain not only stored information but application programs and other information related to the use of the computer, a single user will typically have a large number of floppy diskettes. The organized storage and retrieval of such diskettes offers obvious advantages in any computer environment.
There are other similarly shaped objects which likewise can benefit from an organized storage and retrieval system. For example, compact discs (referred to as CD's) are becoming increasingly popular as a medium for audio recording. The relatively fragile disc containing the audio recording is typically housed within a square or rectangular plastic container which has a similar shape to the plastic holder used with many of the computer floppy diskettes.
A need exists for a storage device for storing disk shaped objects which allows a user to quickly select and retrieve any desired disk from among all of the disks that may be at the user's disposal, while at the same time providing for safe storage of those disks that are not in use.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a disk storage device for storing disk shaped objects such as floppy diskettes in which the diskettes are not only stored safely and securely, but can be selected and retrieved from the device with a minimum amount of handling.
Another object of the invention is to provide a disk storage device of the type used to store floppy diskettes and similarly shaped objects which enables rapid and easy identification and retrieval of such objects from the storage device.
Another object of the invention is to provide a disk storage device in which each stored disk may be individually lifted above the adjacent stored disks and identified in order to facilitate removal.